anged, Mr. Tollman. Improved I should call
it."

"Thank you. Please state your business."

"On one of the cross streets in the forties in New York City there's a
hotel called the Van Styne with a reputation none too savory and
downtown there's a sort of mission organization in which a minister,
name of Sam Haymond, takes an interest. He's a live-wire reform worker."

"Indeed?" Eben Tollman's monosyllabic rejoinder conveyed the impression
of an interest unawakened, but Mr. Hagan was not so soon discouraged.

"Doesn't interest you yet? Maybe it will later. Recently a girl by the
name of Minnie Ray fell out of a window at the hotel I'm speaking
of--the Van Styne. It killed her."

"Yes?"

"I thought likely you'd read the item in the papers. The coroner's
verdict was accident."

"Yes?" These brief, interrogatory replies might have proved dampening to
some narrators. Not so with Mr. Hagan. He nodded his head, then he
asserted briefly. "But as a matter of fact the Ray woman committed
suicide."

"You disagree, it appears, with the coroner."

"I have the facts--and it was seen to that the coroner didn't."

"What bearing has this deplorable episode on our alleged business, Mr.
Hagan?" asked Tollman, and the detective raised an index finger.

"That's what I'm coming to. The Ray woman is only incidental--like
others that get adrift in New York and end up in places like the Van
Styne. Anyhow I'm not starting out to harrow you with any heart-interest
stories.... I'm here to talk business, but you know how it sometimes is,
Mr. Tollman. A share or two of stock worth par or less may swing the
control of a corporation ... and a piece of human drift like Minnie
might turn out to be a human share of stock."

"I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir."

"Don't let that trouble you. You will. Minnie Ray didn't have much
education when she came on east from Indiana and I expect she didn't
have a very heroic character either. But until she went to the Van
Styne, she seems to have been straight."

"There is always an 'until' in these cases," observed Mr. Tollman dryly
and the head of the "Searchlight" nodded his acquiescence.

"Sure there is. She was young and what the rounders call a good-looking
chicken. At first she was inclined to be haughty and upstage when men
she worked for got fresh with her which didn't help her to get jobs--or
hold them. So she hit the toboggan. She spent what little money she
brought with her and after t